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      	  Past and Pending 
 by Moonloon  

 Disclaimer: Property is organised robbery (George Bernard Shaw 1856-1950)

 Author's Notes: Many thanks to Helleboredoll for the beta

 

 Ray was gloating, which Fraser didn't really mind. Yet.

 "And what would you be doing if we'd gone into the warehouse?" Ray asked,
swinging his long legs up onto his desk and grinning at Fraser.

 Fraser rolled his eyes. "Recovering from the smell, I imagine."

 "And what would I be doing if I'd listened to you about Turnbull's
mystery witness?" 

 Ray was heading into 'obnoxiously smug' territory in Fraser's opinion. He
sighed. "Probably identifying my corpse."

 "Yep, and what are we doing because I took charge for a change?"

 Fraser narrowed his eyes. "Well, you're gloating in a most unbecoming
fashion, while I appear to be writing up your report. And it's not like I
never listen to you."

 "Ha!" Ray looked like he was about to start listing all the times Fraser
should have listened to him and hadn't. Which, Fraser admitted, might take
rather a long time. Fortunately the phone interrupted him. 

 "Vecchio!" Ray growled into the phone. "Hey! Morrison! How you doing?
Wait, how did you know to call me here?"

 Fraser returned to the report, tuning out Ray's conversation. It wasn't
until he'd finished the part about the explosive device and the skunk
residue that he noticed Ray had hung up the phone, taken his feet off the
desk, and was sitting far more quietly than he normally did. Fraser looked
up, and Ray was pale and staring into space.

 "Ray?"

 Ray jumped, then blinked a couple of times and looked at Fraser. "Uh.
Yeah, sorry. What?"

 "Bad news?" Fraser asked, nodding at the phone.

 All the energy suddenly snapped back into Ray and he shrugged. "Guy I
helped put away just got parole. Nothing important. You finished?" Ray
leaned over Fraser's shoulder. "Looks good. Let's get out of here."

 ~

 They decided to go for Chinese, and Ray was quiet but fidgety. Fraser
ignored it until Ray accidentally flipped a chopstick across the room.

 Fraser swallowed his broccoli. "What did he do?"

 "Huh? Who?" Ray wasn't paying attention; he was waving apologetically at
one of the wait staff.

 "The man who got parole today."

 Ray's gaze jerked back to Fraser's face, and he shrugged. "We only got
him for murder two. Which is why he's out already. He should have gone
down for half a dozen murder ones, but... we never found the bodies."

 Fraser poked at his dinner with a chopstick. "A serial killer?"

 "Yeah." Ray slumped in his seat. "A really clever one. Picked kids no one
would miss."

 Ah, that explained Ray's mood. Or did it? Ray normally took it as a
personal affront when a criminal got less than his just desserts. Ray
should have been bristling with manic hostility, not this quiet,
distracted nervousness.

 After ten minutes of silence, Fraser's curiosity got the better of him.
"He targeted children?"

 Ray jumped and glared at Fraser. "Nice dinner conversation, Fraser.
Teenagers. Gay kids. Runaways and throwaways, and we'll never know how
many of them, because nobody fucking noticed." Ray slammed twenty dollars
down on the table, kicked his chair back and stormed out of the
restaurant.

 ~

 Fraser dreamed of touch. He felt strong hand on his hip, the brush of
gel-spiked hair on his stomach, and the tickle of affectionate grumbles
breathed on the inside of his thigh. He woke up reluctantly when
Diefenbaker put a paw over his face. "What..." Fraser started to complain,
annoyed at being pulled from his dream, then realised he could hear
scratching noises coming from the foyer. He quietly got out of bed and
slipped out of his office. The noises were coming from the front door, and
sounded like someone was trying to pick the lock. He was about to yank the
door open and apprehend the malfeasant when a thump and a muffled 'oops'
revealed who was on the other side of the door.

 "Good evening, Ray." Fraser said, opening the door. "Is there oof..." Ray
tumbled through the door and knocked Fraser off his feet.

 "Sorry. Sorry. Didn't see you there." Ray sat down on the floor next to
Fraser, and Fraser blinked at the smell of whisky and stale cigarette
smoke that clung to Ray.

 "Have you been drinking?"

 Ray shrugged. "Yeah. A lot. Didn't help much." Ray sank further down onto
the floor, looking like nothing more than a relaxed puddle of angular
limbs. "Need a nap."

 "No, you need to drink something non alcoholic, eat something if you can,
and find somewhere a little less uncomfortable to sleep it off." Fraser
stood up, swung the door closed and levered Ray to his feet.

 "Yeah, you're a pal, Frase." Ray wobbled a little, but let Fraser lead
him to the kitchen. "Why am I here again?"

 Fraser manhandled Ray into one of the kitchen chairs. "You didn't say.
Perhaps you wanted to talk?"

 Ray made a rude noise and laid his head down on the table. "Like that
would help."

 Fraser hunted through the cupboards in search of sugar. "This is about
the serial killer that was released today, isn't it?"

 Ray was quiet long enough that Fraser worried he'd fallen asleep. Ray's
face was turned away from him, and his chest rose and fell slowly.

 "Ray, are you..."

 "It was my first undercover gig. Except it wasn't. If you look in my file
it says I 'assisted'. They're not supposed to put rookies in undercover,
but Morrison was desperate. Back then... I wasn't much out of my teens
myself, give me a haircut, put me in the right clothes... I looked just
like all those poor bastards."

 Fraser poured some sugar, too much in his opinion, into the tea he'd made
and put it down on the table. Ray didn't move.

 "This guy, DeSilva, staggered into the 18th, shot in the gut, bleeding
out. Didn't manage to say a word before he passed out on the floor. Died
on the way to the hospital. Turns out he was an ex-cop, working as private
security for some big shit, Reilly, out in the sticks. Big shit had a gay
son he'd been trying to straighten out, but the kid was some kind of
Houdini. Looney bins, reprogramming centres, military schools... kid broke
out of 'em all. So the big shit sent DeSilva to follow the kid around,
make sure he didn't do anything to embarrass his old man."

 "And the boy was dead?"

 Ray sighed and sat up. "Don't know for sure. We never found a body." He
picked up the tea and took a gulp. "Shit, Fraser. You never heard of
sugar?"

 ~

 Fraser woke up late the next morning. Ray hadn't made much sense after
his sugarless tea complaint, and had fallen asleep on a couch in one of
the public rooms halfway through kicking his boots off. Fraser slipped
quietly into the room to check on him, silently thanking any deities who
might be listening that it was a Saturday, and no one was likely to come
knocking at the door.

 Ray was sleeping on his side on the long leather couch, one arm dangling
down and exposing the inside of his elbow, and one sock-clad foot poking
out from under the blanket. Simply by his presence, Ray gave the formal
room an air of homeliness. Fraser smiled, feeling ridiculously happy that
Ray had come here instead of going back to his apartment. The Consulate
often felt cold end empty, but never when Ray was there, even passed out.

 Fraser crouched down and stared at Ray. Such a confusing person. Fraser
wasn't used to being confused. Since coming to Chicago he'd become used to
being in situations where he might not understand exactly what was going
on, but normally felt confident that thorough investigative technique
would bring greater understanding. Not so with Ray. Studying Ray only
brought more confusing variables to Fraser's attention.

 Fraser brushed sweaty hair off Ray's forehead, relishing the chance to
touch him, even though he didn't smell very appealing at the moment. Ray
opened his eyes, and for a moment there it was like the air hummed between
them. Both caught off-guard with all their barriers down, everything
showed on their faces. 

 Then Ray groaned and rolled off the couch onto his hands and knees. "Tell
me you brought a bucket."

 In the scramble to get Ray to a bathroom before he vomited, the hum was
lost.

 ~

 Fraser concentrated on the back of Ray's neck in an attempt to tune out
the smell of the alley, the sounds of the busy street behind them, and the
stifling summer heat. It wasn't working well, but he'd noticed that Ray
was slightly tenser than usual, information that might be useful later.

 "Hey, sugar, that toy soldier come with batteries?" Fraser tried not to
sigh; it wasn't the first proposition he'd had that day, but it was the
first one from someone so young. The boy couldn't have been much more than
fourteen. He opened his mouth to reply, but Ray waved at him to stay
silent.

 "Never mind the Mountie, kid. Look... I'm not down here to bust heads."

 "Pfft! Yeah, right." The boy rolled his eyes. "What do you want, and what
do I get out of it?"

 Ray handed over one of his cards. "There's a guy, just got out of
prison..." 

 Fraser became a fraction more alert. He'd thought this was something to
do with attempting to find witnesses for the Feretti case, but this
sounded more like whatever had been bothering Ray at the weekend. 

 "... He's bad news. Any kids go missing, you let me know, okay? And stay
away from a tall white guy with black hair and a Georgia accent."

 "Like I said, what's in it for me?"

 Ray rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands, an action Fraser found
strangely attractive. He watched the twist of tendons under Ray's skin,
and wondered if the skin on Ray's inner arms felt as soft as it looked.
Realising he was becoming distracted while working, Fraser brought his
attention back to what Ray was saying.

 "Apart from you maybe not being another victim? Twenty bucks, okay? If a
kid vanishes for no obvious reason, and you let me know, twenty bucks,
deal?"

 "Sure." The boy plucked the card out of Ray's hand and slipped it into
his pocket. Then he turned to Fraser. "You want to come back some time
without your boyfriend, you and me could play dress up. I got a sailor
suit back at my place. I do discounts for pretty daddies."

 This time Ray grabbed onto Fraser's upper arm and dragged him out of the
alley before he could reply. "Shouldn't we try to help..."

 "We are helping!" Ray growled, towing him down the street. "What do you
want me to do? Drag that kid over to Family Services? He'd be gone five
minutes after we dropped him off, and you know it."

 Fraser ignored the tingling in his arm where Ray was still gripping him.
"This is about that phone call you got on Friday, isn't it? The serial
killer? Maybe I could help, if you told me about it."

 Ray shrugged. "Yeah, maybe. Come on, my place. The pizza's on me."

 ~

 Ray tossed a crust back into the box and settled back on the couch next
to Fraser. "So... they had a dead ex-cop, and it all got bumped up to
Homicide. Which is where Morrison came in. Before Homicide he worked Vice,
and even though the Reilly kid hadn't been working the streets, missing
gay kids were still a Vice problem back then. He got the lead because he
knew his way around. Only they couldn't investigate, because the kind of
places where the Reilly kid was hanging out everyone could smell cop at
two hundred paces and were pretty wary of anyone over twenty."

 Fraser swallowed his last bite of pizza, and shifted slightly so he was
facing Ray. "So they asked you to participate?" Ray looked a lot more
relaxed than he had the last time they'd talked about this. Of course, the
last time they'd talked about it, Ray had been drunk and they'd been in
the comfortless and brightly-lit Consulate kitchen. Now, in Ray's
cluttered and cosy apartment, with the lights dimmed and something slow
and vaguely Latin playing quietly on the stereo, Fraser couldn't imagine
being anything other than relaxed.

 "I volunteered," Ray said, stretching out and sprawling across the couch
until his head rested on the arm and his knee pressed against Fraser's
leg. Ray stared at the ceiling for a moment, then continued, "I was just a
dumb rookie. If they hadn't been desperate to get someone on the inside
they'd have told me to get lost." 

 Ray pulled a cushion out from under his hip and stuffed it behind his
neck so he was facing Fraser instead of the ceiling. "I got dressed up
like jailbait and went and hung out with the lost boys for a while. And
that's when we found out about the other kids. They'd been disappearing
for years and no one reported them missing. Suddenly a murder/missing
person investigation turned into a hunt for a serial killer. You ever
worked a serial killer case?"

 "No," Fraser said, "Although there were a series of mysterious deaths
involving carved whalebone artefacts that quite..." Fraser noticed Ray's
irritated expression. "No, not as such."

 Ray sat up for a moment, suddenly so close Fraser could feel the heat
radiating off him. "Serial killer cases... they're not like regular cases.
It's a circus. And I got sucked right in." He dropped back down into an
untidy sprawl, exposing a thin slice of belly between the bottom of his
shirt and the waistband of his jeans, and leaving Fraser a little
breathless. "I'd been hanging out in the right places, so they told me to
hang out some more. Ask a few questions. Get accepted into the community."

 Fraser reluctantly pulled his gaze away from Ray's stomach. "Which you
did." 

 "Yes," Ray said, making a grab for his untouched beer on the table, and
splashing it across the back of his hand. Fraser watched, slightly dazed,
as Ray absently sucked the beer off his knuckles. "Even then, I was good
at undercover." Ray paused and took a sip of his beer. "And we caught the
guy, but only for DeSilva. Not for any of the kids. And now he's out."

 Fraser knew Ray wasn't telling him everything. Had barely summarised what
had happened. There was something about this case that was still gnawing
at Ray, but Fraser knew better than to push. Ray could be quite as
stubborn as... well... Fraser was himself at times.

 "I should go. It's getting late and Diefenbaker really needs to go out."
Fraser stood up, ignoring Dief's protesting grumble.

 "I'll give you a ride back to the Consulate," Ray said, standing up, just
a little too close for a moment.

 "Thank you." Fraser had intended to walk, but he was suddenly reluctant
to leave Ray's company. "Wait... the beer..."

 "Frase, I had less than two mouthfuls." Ray grinned, and Fraser realised
that it was the first time Ray had smiled since he'd taken that phone call
the week before.

 "Any amount of alcohol, no matter how small is enough to impair your..."
Fraser found himself grinning back, even as he lectured Ray on the
deleterious effects of alcohol.

 "Frase, two mouthfuls. I promise I won't crash." Ray patted Fraser on the
shoulder, and their eyes locked. The hum was back, and for a moment they
swayed towards each other. Then Ray turned away. "C'mon, get your hat."

 Fraser blinked, unsure of what had happened. He wasn't an idiot, he knew
he was attracted to Ray, but he couldn't work out if the... frisson...
between them was one-sided or not. Every so often they'd share a look or a
touch and Fraser was sure that his feelings were returned, and then Ray
would turn away, or make a joke, and Fraser stopped being so sure. He
sighed, collected his hat and followed Ray and Dief out of the apartment.

 ~

 Two weeks later he and Ray were on their way back to the 27th after a
fruitless afternoon looking for Johnny 'Smiles' Siler, one of Ray's less
reliable informants, when Ray braked hard and glared at a boarded up shop
front. 'Starbucks opening here soon!' proclaimed a poster pasted to the
boards.

 "Huh," was all that Ray said before putting the car back into gear and
driving away. Then a few moments later, "Starbucks."

 "Is there something significant about that particular Starbucks?" Fraser
couldn't imagine what. After all there were probably fifty more in the
city.

 "No. It's just that everything seems to be reminding me..." Ray trailed
off, then slapped the steering wheel. "That's the place, you know. The
place all the runaways used to hang out. There were pinball and arcade
games at the front, and a caf at the back, and if you looked like you
hadn't had a good meal for a few days Chester, the guy who ran the place,
would slip you free fries."

 "Sounds like a good man." Fraser said.

 Ray flinched. "I thought so. Everyone thought so. He was the guy you went
to if your parents had kicked you out because they'd found out you were
gay. He'd give you a big cup of hot chocolate and send you to one of the
charity shelters or help you find a place to stay. He was in the perfect
place to pick out the kids who didn't go the shelters, the ones who stayed
under the radar. The ones no one would miss."

 "He was the killer?"

 "Yeah. And I liked him." Ray hunched over the wheel, and Fraser barely
resisted the urge to reach over in some kind of comforting gesture. "I
thought he was my friend." Ray drove through a red light and flipped off a
driver who blared his horn at them. "I felt bad about lying to him. I was
this close to telling him who I really was."

 "Ah." That certainly explained a few things.

 "Yeah, 'Ah'. He killed God knows how many people, and I still feel like I
owe... fuck." Ray slammed on the brakes, yanked the GTO to the curb, and
leaped out. He'd stormed halfway down the block before Fraser caught up
with him.

 "Ray..." Fraser touched Ray's sleeve, only to have it tugged away from
him.

 "Not now, Frase."

 Fraser took a deep breath, his own demons not far from his thoughts.
"Ray, I understand. There have been criminals who have fooled me too.
There were a few I genuinely cared about." Cared about far too much in one
spectacular piece of idiocy. He reached for Ray again, his hand barely
brushing Ray's wrist.

 Ray spun around, furious. "You don't understand."

 "So explain it to me."

 Ray grabbed Fraser by the front of his uniform and shook him. "You don't
want to know, Fraser. You have no idea what a mess it all was." Ray tried
to shove Fraser away, but only succeeded in making them both stumble into
the doorway of a boarded up store. Fraser caught Ray's elbows and stopped
them both from slamming into the spiderweb cracks of the door's safety
glass. 

 The doorway was deep and shaded, and the street behind them was silent
and deserted. Fraser was suddenly all too aware of Ray's closeness, the
smell of his sweat and the beat of his pulse, visible at the juncture of
shoulder and neck. Fraser could feel the hum, back again and buzzing
through both their bodies as Ray swayed towards him, then pressed their
lips together.

 Fraser opened his mouth, determined to enjoy it however long it lasted.
He had a brief taste of Ray's warm wet mouth before Ray pushed him away.

 "Hell, no." Ray backed away, looking even angrier. "No. We can't do this.
This is so way beyond wrong." Ray stepped out into the sunlight. "Don't do
this to me."

 Fraser reached out a hand. "Ray, we're not doing anything wrong. Surely
you know how I..."

 "NO!"

 Fraser blinked. Ray had shouted at him many times before, in the heat of
the moment and occasionally in real anger, but it had never had force like
this before.

 "Don't you get it, Frase?" Ray yelled. "We were fucking. He was such a
nice guy, and I didn't know shit about myself, and he thought I was
sixteen, and I still let him do me." Ray seemed to realise they were on a
public street, and stopped shouting. He stepped back into Fraser's
personal space and continued in a low intense voice. "When they arrested
him, he found out I was a cop and didn't say a word about me. He could
have ended my career and my marriage right there, but he didn't. He was
setting me up to be his next victim, and I owe him for not screwing up my
whole damned life." Ray spun on his heel and headed back to the GTO.

 "Ray..."

 "Fraser, leave this alone. Leave me alone." They reached the car and Ray
opened the driver's side door. "Just... look, you're only a couple of
blocks from the Consulate. I'll see you tomorrow, okay?"

 "I..."

 "Tomorrow, Fraser."

 It wasn't until Ray was out of sight that Fraser remembered Diefenbaker
was still in the back of the car.

 ~

 Fraser knocked on Ray's door. He wasn't sure he was doing the right
thing, but he had to talk to Ray. He waited for a few minutes, then
knocked again. The door slowly opened and Ray stood there looking
resigned.

 "I forgot about Dief. Sorry. He's on the couch." Fraser heard Dief
slithering off the couch and onto the floor where he should have been.

 "Can I come in?"

 Ray hesitated for a moment, then swung the door open. "As long as you
don't expect me to talk."

 "You don't have to talk. I'd appreciate it if you listened though?"

 "Fine." Ray turned away, and Fraser heard Ray open a beer in the kitchen.
He gave Diefenbaker a reproachful look. 

 "The couch is for humans. You shouldn't take advantage of Ray like that."

 "I don't mind. I get why you talk to him so much. He's a good listener."
Ray sat down and put his feet up on the coffee table. "So... why are you
here, Fraser?"

 Now that he was here, Fraser wasn't sure how to start. He wished Ray had
offered him a beer, just so he had something to do with his hands. He sat
down next to Ray, but not so close they were touching, and said, "I've
been in love twice. Both times with the same woman." He blew out a breath.
This wasn't going to be easy.

 Ray was looking at him like he was insane. "Okay."

 Fraser settled further back into the cushions and tried to relax a
little. "The first time I fell in love with her I knew she was a criminal.
She'd taken part in a robbery and was on the run from the authorities. I
arrested her and she went to prison. But not before I'd slept with her."

 Ray picked at the label on his beer. "Victoria Metcalf?" 

 "Yes." Fraser reached over and took the beer from Ray. He raised it to
his lips and drank deeply before continuing. "The second time I fell in
love with her, I thought she'd paid her debt to society, but really... she
was just running up a larger one. She was a thief and a murderer, she
killed a man with my gun, framed me for it, shot Diefenbaker, and when she
asked me to run away with her I decided to go. The Vecchios would have
lost their home, Dief was in a cage at the veterinarian's, and I would
have been on the run for the rest of my life. But I went with her."

 "And Vecchio shot you." Ray was looking right at Fraser now. He took his
feet off the coffee table and turned a little, curiosity clear on his
face. Fraser decided that was better than the miserable blankness that had
been there before. 

 "Yes. He's always said it was an accident, but I think it makes me feel
better to assume he did it on purpose. I did something very wrong and
stupid, and I don't want to be unpunished." Fraser turned his head to the
side and studied Ray. Ray looked like he did when he'd found the solution
to a particularly difficult set of problems. A sort of dawning
comprehension, but not the good kind.

 After a moment Ray spoke. "You think all this coming up again is freaking
me out because I feel guilty?"

 "Well... yes." Fraser frowned. "It seemed to fit the facts."

 "Huh." Ray took back his beer, his fingers brushing over Fraser's and
leaving a faint tingling warmth. "It didn't occur to you that the whole
queer thing might be what's freaking me out?"

 Fraser's stomach dropped and he cursed himself for an idiot. Just because
he didn't have a problem with flexible sexuality didn't mean Ray would be
the same. He rubbed his eyebrow and tried not to let his embarrassment
show on his face. "Ah, no. Not really."

 "You're usually smarter than that, Frase," Ray said, looking away from
Fraser. "Any time I've wanted... that... it's been wrong." He flicked a
glance back and shrugged. "I'm not saying it's wrong for everyone, but
me... I can't trust myself when I feel like that. I've got no sense. I was
sleeping with a serial killer, and when we arrested him I didn't think
'One less killer on the streets', I thought 'I'm not going to get to have
sex with him ever again'." Ray took another mouthful of beer and rubbed a
hand over his eyes. He looked tied and defeated. "This queer stuff...it
can't end my marriage now, but it can still mess up the rest of my life.
It can mess up me. You understand?"

 Fraser nodded slowly, feeling sick and sad. 

 Ray stood up. "I'll see you tomorrow, okay?" He finished off his beer and
set the bottle down on the coffee table and went to his bedroom, not quite
slamming the door behind him, but certainly closing it rather more firmly
than necessary.

 ~

 The next day Ray seemed more or less himself. A little more volatile than
usual, and he didn't invite Fraser to spend time with him after work, but
on the whole... normal. Fraser filled the long Rayless evenings with books
and long walks with Diefenbaker. It was almost unbearably boring, and the
temptation to lock himself in his room and retreat into carnal fantasies
of an unrestrained and eager Ray was ever present.

 Normal lasted for fifteen days. On the fifteenth day, Ray got another
phone call from his former Lieutenant, Morrison. Ten minutes later they
were standing in the middle of a crime scene.

 Fraser stood on the sidelines as Ray unzipped the body bag far enough to
see the man inside. Ray's usual distaste for dead bodies showed on his
face, but he didn't turn away. "You got the shooter?" Ray asked, waving at
one of the patrolmen.

 "Yeah, the crazy bas... the perp didn't even try to get away. Just stood
there yelling about how the vic had killed his son." The patrolman nodded
at an elderly man sitting in the back of a black and white.

 Ray finally looked up, and turned towards the car. "Is that Luke Reilly?"
Ray asked.

 The patrolman checked his notebook. "Yeah. You know him?"

 "I met him once, a long time ago."

 "The vic kill his son?"

 Ray zipped the bodybag back up. "Don't know, we never found..." Ray
rubbed his face and swore under his breath. "Yeah. We never found any of
the bodies, but yes. He killed Reilly's kid, and probably a dozen other
kids."

 The patrolman opened his mouth to say something, but Ray bounced to his
feet and strode away, past Fraser and out under the crime scene tape.
Fraser followed Ray back to the car. "Ray... are you all right?"

 "I'm fine. Fine. I just need to..." Ray stopped in the middle of the
street. "Shit!"

 "Ray..."

 Ray turned around. "We're never going to find the bodies of those kids.
We're never going to nail that son of a bitch for their murders. I was
keeping an eye on him, following him. He'd have lead me to them
eventually." Ray stormed off towards his car, waving his arms and swearing
under his breath.

 Well, that explained why Ray hadn't wanted to spend time together outside
of work. Fraser decided not to feel guilty about that cheering him up.

 ~

 As soon as they got back to the 27th, Ray was on the phone. "Hey,
Morrison. So last week, when you phoned me, who else did you phone?" Ray
had a tight grin, completely devoid of humour, on his face. "You phone
Reilly too?"

 Fraser sat down and watched Ray, wondering if the phone was going to
survive.

 "You manipulative bast... you were hoping one of us would take him out,
weren't you?"

 Fraser started counting. He'd reached seven before Ray threw the
telephone at the wall.

 ~

 Fraser wasn't surprised when he was woken by drunken scratching at his
door that night. He opened the door, and this time Ray caught himself on
the doorframe instead of knocking Fraser over.

 "I'm not really drunk," Ray said, stepping inside with the exaggerated
carefulness that came with inebriation.

 "You could have fooled me," Fraser said, crossing his arms.

 "Aw, Frase, don't get all pissy. I have decided," he threw an arm out,
miming casting something away, "to let it go. Sure, closure with... him in
jail, and a proper burial for all those kids would have been better, but
I'm over it. He's dead. I'm still here. Any day you're not dead is one you
won, right?"

 Fraser smiled. "I'll make some tea."

 "Put sugar in it this time," Ray said, following him to the kitchen. "I
don't know what you've got against sugar. My metabolism, I need the
stuff."

 Fraser knew better than to argue with someone under the influence, so he
just smiled, nodded and put the sugar bowl in front of Ray as he slumped
into the same kitchen chair he'd sat in last time.

 "Sorry," Ray said, as Fraser put the tea down in front of him.

 "About what?" Fraser blew on his tea and took a sip.

 "For being weird. For being weird about..." Ray waved his mug, sloshing
tea onto the table, "... all the stuff since Morrison phoned."

 "That's fine, Ray, "Fraser said. "It was a stressful situ..."

 "And before." Ray put the mug down. "Before he called. When I was weird
about us. All this time we've known each other, I've been weird about us.
And I'm sorry."

 Fraser sat back in surprise. "Oh."

 "I wasn't being fair. I should have either said yes or no. I shouldn't
have pretended there was nothing going on."

 Fraser blinked, unsure of how to react. Ray had been very good at
pretending nothing was going on. To the point where Fraser had been half
convinced all the touches and meaningful glances, the buzz were in his
mind. "Would you have said yes?"

 Ray looked uncomfortable. "I'd have said no."

 "Oh." Fraser knew it was impossible for his stomach to drop down to
pelvis level, but it did feel like it.

 Ray reached out and grabbed Fraser's arm, pinning it to the table. "I'd
have said no then. All the stuff I said about it screwing up my life. That
stuff was more important then. Because it was all tied up with... what
happened when I was a rookie. All of it was mixed up together in this box
marked 'wrong'." 

 Fraser also knew it was impossible for his stomach to be in his throat.
"And now?"

 "And now... it's not as important. He's dead, and I can't owe a dead man
anything. What happened back then was a mistake, but that doesn't mean
that anything that happens now is a mistake too." Ray let go of Fraser's
arm. "Not that I'm really sure what I want to happen now."

 "You should probably sleep on it," Fraser said, leaning back to grab a
towel and mopping up Ray's spilt tea.

 Ray grinned, and Fraser couldn't help grinning back. The buzz flared to
life until Ray said, "Remember to leave me a bucket this time."

 ~

 Fraser was dreaming again. This time he felt warm lips pressing gently on
the side of his neck, he turned towards the warmth and woke up suddenly
when he realised they were real. "Ray?"

 Ray slid, fully clothed, under the blankets, and Fraser could see the
outline of his face in what little pre-dawn glow got through the thick
curtains. "Yeah. Hi. I woke up sober, and I just..." Ray shrugged. "There
didn't seem to be any good reason why I wasn't here."

 "Maybe not good reasons, but you did have reasons." Fraser tried to
ignore his body's insistence that he pull Ray closer. "You told me about
them last night, remember?"

 "They're stupid reasons. Really stupid." Ray pushed at Fraser until they
were lying on their sides, facing each other. "I was so worried about
making a mess of my life I was making a whole different mess. You're not
Chester, and I'm not a dumb rookie. Comparing us to that back then is like
comparing cheese and rocks."

 Fraser nodded, his whole body heated to the point where he could barely
think. "Yes, but you can't just change your mind..."

 "Sure I can." The dim light couldn't hide Ray's grin. "I've been carrying
this around for all these years, and now I don't have to. I don't want to.
Whoosh! It's gone."

 Fraser shook his head. "No, it's not."

 Ray's grin faded. "Okay, maybe not all of it. He brushed his lips over
Fraser's. "But it's okay to want this, isn't it?"

 Fraser lifted a hand and wrapped around the back of Ray's neck. "Yes.
Yes, it's okay to want this." And kissed him back.

 The End  
  

End Past and Pending by Moonloon 

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